Living: the ultimate team sport

Positive input from an agent: a welcome gift

Posted on February 15, 2016 Updated on February 14, 2016

As I’ve mentioned before, positive input about ones writing from someone other than your loved ones or friends is a veritable gift, presented on a silver platter.

Literary agent, Janet Reid, has once again singled out my entry as one that pleased her. She holds almost weekly 100-word writing contests on her blog which I enter in the hopes of being named a winner. That hasn’t happened yet but I’m almost as pleased with being told that my contest submission stood out.

The first time this happened, I posted my entry and her comments, here. What follows is my most recent complimented entry. I’ve underlined the required 10 words that must be included in each submission, and I’ve put in bold the sentence she liked most, which happens to be the last sentence. Her comment about my entry: “This entry cracked me up completely, especially this punch line.”

Here’s my submission:

The high school teacher sat with his student to go over her research paper.

“It’s Switzerland, not Switserland.”

“Before you criticize me, you know that’s the way it sounds.”

“Tell that to the originators of the exceptional country that’s served as a safe, neutral world-entity for many years.”

“How many years?”

“Look, I’m the teacher, not you. It’s your paper we’re correcting, not mine.”

“Sorry.”

Mr. Carmichael turned the page and shook his head.

“It’s Oxfam, not Oxfan.”

“Says who?”

“Says everyone. Why the errors, Jennifer?”

“That’s how it arrived.”

“Excuse me?”

“I bought it, not my fault.”

I’ll keep on submitting to Janet Reid in the hopes she’ll fall in love with my entry and say something affirmative about it once again. It doesn’t take much to make me happy.